L'AGE D'OR (1930) - ♦♦♦♦♦ 

Directed by - Luis Bunuel

Written by - Luis Bunuel, Salvador Dali (based on a novel by Marquis de Sade)

Starring - Gaston Modot, Lya Lys, Caridad de Laberdesque

"L'AGE D'OR is rightfully hailed as one of the highest representations of surrealism in cinema, and rightfully so as director LUIS BUNUEL in his collaboration with the great artist SALVADOR DALI manages to possibly outdo their ambitious already exhibited in their previous work UN CHIEN ANDALOU. The ambition is even greater considering that the production embraced the newly discovered sound techiques, and this is one of the very first talkied of French cinema. 

The story is hard to sum up, as it consists of a series of thematically linked vignettes, but the bulk of the narrative revolves around the passionate romance between a man and a woman, whose steamy affair is interrupted by obstacles from their families and their Catholic Church. 

This blatant mixing of religion and sex, with plenty of strong suggestive imagery, still feels powerfully provocative to this day, and one can only imagine the shock value they caused at the time of its release in 1930. Such images as a girl sucking the toe of a religious statue before making out with her own father, or a love-making session in the mud during the course of a religious ceremony dare to link these themes with strong poetic immediacy, and this link serves its purpose at unearthing sexual repression and the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church. 

Such a poetic approach is worthy of the surrealist wave that it follows, and is therefore tied to dreams and allegories that are fascinating and charged with meaning. 

What is equally as surprising is that essentially, L'AGE D'OR is quite honest in a more general portrayal of romanticism, even in the way in which it had been written about in classic literature. With its open references to the writings of the MARQUIS DE SADE, there are psychological connotations with themes of erotica and fetishism, and even at its most controversial, BUNUEL's film is never dishonest and on the contrary constantly supportive of its views of sexual repression, often induced by religious values and class dispairity, as being a worrying soruce of evil."

Comedy, France